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March 4 2009 – Johannesburg. South Africa's Constitutional Court reserved judgment on Wednesday in the case brought forward by seven parties to challenge sections of the Electoral Act barring the vast majority of South Africans working abroad from voting there.

The case was set down for Wednesday March 4 and Friday March 6 - however the court insisted that all the arguments be delivered and reserved judgment until this was done. Last month, the Pretoria High Court had issued such an order - and the Constitutional Court is now being asked to confirm or deny the constutitional rights issue. see

ANC already announced election date before court decision:The caretaker-ANC cabinet has meanwhile, already rushed through the announcement of the election date for April 22 without waiting for this Constitutional Court decision. Also see

To allow the estimated 2-million South Africans abroad to still be allowed to register for voting at the embassies and legations, the court was also asked to order that special provisions be made to extend the legal deadline for the registration for this group: normally, under the rules laid down by the Independent Electoral Commission, no new voters may be registered after the election date has been ratified in Parliament.

The ANC-government fears that the large number of South Africans working abroad will upset the electoral apple-cart to much and is doing everything in its power to prevent citizens living and working abroad, from being able to vote. It is actively opposing the application in court.

The South African government's Home Affairs Department and the Independent Electoral Commission have submitted arguments against the application -- claiming it 'would be a logistical nightmare to ensure that all citizens could cast their ballots overseas. '

They were allowed to vote before - why not now?However it's been done before without any kind of 'logistical problems": the last time all South Africans working and living abroad were able to vote was in the first democratic election in 1994 - and many hundreds of thousands then voted from foreign embassies and legations, mainly in the United Kingdom.

The British Broadcasting Corporation says in a seperate report earlier this month that there's at least 600,000 South Africans living and working in the UK alone - and more than 2-million in some 46 other countries, mainly forced abroad to seek work because of South Africa's own black-economic-empowerment job reservation laws, which bar most 'whites' from working in the country of their birth since 1994.

Since the 1994 election which put ANC-leader Nelson Mandela into power, foreign voting facilities have however been denied to all but just an elite few - temporary travellers and embassy personnel and their dependants.

It is unclear when judgment will be handed down but with the clock ticking down to the elections on April 22 -- it will have to happen soon. see

March 4 2009 – DOKKUM, The Netherlands. By Adriana Stuijt. After the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 on US territory, then-secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell launched a frenzied construction programme of all the foreign legations -- on a scale unprecedented in US history.

65 new US fortresses were already built... and another 31 foreign embassy buildings are under design and nearing construction, says director of the State department's Overseas Building Operations bureau, Dick Shinnick. This is the new US embassy on the banks of the Tigris river in Iraq, outside Baghdad. Iraqis call it the new US Crusader’s Castle.

In a May 23 2007 ceremony, Ambassador Eric M. Bost broke ground on the site of the new $20million US Consulate General in Johannesburg. The new fortress-like building is expected to open at Nr 1 Sandton Drive, Sandton, 20km north of Johannesburg, in December 2009 to accommodate 150 employees. And on October 14, 2005, against a sun-drenched backdrop of the Constantia Valley and the peaks of Table Mountain National Park, the new U.S. Consulate General complex also opened its new doors – again, well away from the city centre.

And all the new US embassy buildings mushrooming all over the world are built like fortresses. The entire programme was initiated with great urgency by former secretary of State Colin Powell, who pleaded for and obtained huge funding for the building programme of new US fortress-like buildings all over the world. See

Iraq

The world’s largest embassy was built on the banks of the Tigris river, overlooking an area which once was a riverside park – a massive, fortified compound; encircled by blast walls and cut off from the rest of Baghdad, it stands out like the crusader castles that once dotted the landscape of the Middle East. Its size and scope bring into question whether it is even correct to call this facility an “embassy.”

Why is the United States building these huge new fortresses all over the world? From Algiers to Cape Town, from Madagascar to The Hague, new, secure and super-modern fortress-like US embassies are mushrooming at a rapid pace all across the globe see

However -- most US citizens remain blithely unaware of this building frenzy, nor the massive and very negative impact it has on the lives and feelings of millions of ordinary citizens who live around these US embassies worldwide. Not that these massive new fortresses to house US personnel in aren't necessary: the threats against Americans living and working abroad are still growing more each year.

The US Embassy in downtown Brussels took massive security measures after 9/11. Now, the Brussels city council has built a high, fine-meshed new security fence and a safe footpath for local citizens at the cost of 550,000 Euros. A gift to the people of the United States, to keep their embassy personnel safer, they said. Vote it up!

It all started the day after 9/11, when US Embassies and Consulates suddenly surrounded themselves with high, very unsightly barriers of concrete blocks, rolls of razor wire and guarded by grim-faced, heavily-armed men with a seriously defensive attitude - who body-searched, scanned and questioned every citizen within a 500-metre radius of the embassies.

Authorities around all the US' foreign legations - always located right in the city-centres worldwide -- also boosted their own security measures, often to such a degree that the comfort zones for residents were disturbed practically overnight, inside a safety diameter of at least 500 metres.

By 2012, the US Embassy staff are moving from this Bauhaus-building in the centre of The Hague to a new building on the outskirts of town. Dutch citizens say that the daily interaction with residents will stop, and impact negatively on the US' relations with the Dutch. Similar problems also occur at 96 other foreign legations, where new embassies have mushroomed well away from city centres.

Calls soon went up in European cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Rome and The Hague for these annoying, high-security US embassies to be moved to the outer perimeters of all these major centres of commerce and democracy.

In The Hague, the Netherlands it's become very difficult to get into the US Embassy: only people who have a previous appointment can visit it. Personnel inside the barred, bulletproofed windows still remain vulnerable: for instance, a streetcar zooms by right past their windows every few minutes.

Just to get into the embassy and also the consulate in Amsterdam, visitors need to bring photo IDs, passport or driving license and must leave any cellular phones and other electronic equipment at home. And, although the official Embassy street address is at the Lange Voorhout, the entrance to the Embassy has been moved to a complicated guard-house at the back. And getting through the maze of security is terrifying for ordinary folk. seeMost people don't need to visit the embassies in Europe personally to get their visa - normally, they have to take their applications to the consulates - although most of the processing can now be done very efficiently online. seeUS Embassy a drama for The Hague

The Americans and the Dutch treasure their long friendship, which dates back to at least 1745. This is the old US Embassy in Amsterdam. Vote it up!

In The Hague, city residents describe the US Embassy's magnificent Bauhaus-style building as 'a gloomy prison' these days.

There's a row of concrete poles to stop cars; high fences and armoured windows - and an army of police always keeping an eye out. Says labour party city councillor Marnix Norder: „It's a drama for the entire city.'

And in keeping with Colin Powell's massive building project, the US Embassy here is also planning a move to the outer perimeter of town, among the sand-dunes next to the North Sea -- and on a site which now houses a football club, a greyhound race track and the horse-racing circuit.

In June, The Hague's city council approved its project plan for the move of the US Embassy from its current spot on the Lange Voorhout in the city centre to this new location. Three local sports clubs - JAC football, South Holland Greyhound Running Association and the Hofstad Kennel Club, will simply have to move. The Hague town council agreed with the US government agency for Overseas Building Operations (OBO) to deliver the plot of land cleared and ready to be built upon. It's hoped that the new building would be ready for occupation by 2012.

The municipality already owns most of the site. There now are plans to turn the old embassy building, a design of famous 'Bauhaus" Hungarian-American architect Marcel Breuer from 1959, into a city museum when ownership reverts back to the city. One of Breuer's most famous designs is the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. see

Berlin, Germany:Architects in Europe warn that the tendency for the Americans to move their embassies to the outside edges of cities is "a very negative development'. The only exception thus far is the US embassy in Berlin right next to the historical Brandenburger Tor - an in-your-face, very secure fortress of a building, already fondly referred to by the people of Berlin as "Fort Knox" , built as required along the new guidelines for standard US embassy design which contractors have to follow: seesee

Brussels, Belgium:After September 11 2001, the US embassy located right along stately Regent Avenue in Brussels, was also surrounded overnight by a massive, unsightly, really nasty looking barrier of razor wire. Local residents who had always lived cheek-to-jowl near the embassy, now can't get near it without going through a barrier of grim-looking, armed security guards - who also hound the adjacent foot and bike paths used by the surrounding residents. Residents find themselves searched and extensively questioned every time they strolled out with the dog and even the kids cycling to school underwent this rigid examination procedure. So they started taking the long, dangerous route across the high-speed inner-ring-road around the city.

This caused increased friction -- so with the help of the US ambassador, a more 'people-friendly ', fine-meshed high-security fence was installed, and a new path built, said Brussels city councillor Pascal Smet.

The pathway was formally opened only this week. Residents say they now are well-pleased with the new fencing which replaced the ugly, thick rolls of razor wire. "And it's high enough 'so that no-one could throw anything towards the embassy building,' said Christine Léonard, spokeswoman for the city council.

The entire new construction of the fence and the path costs 550.000 euro - a gift from the citizens of Brussels to the US Embassy. see

The Hague, Netherlands

It's very difficult to get access to the US consulate in Amsterdam these days: this group of students were given a rare view inside the building in February 2009. Vote it up!

Meanwhile back in The Hague, local residents don't like the idea of the Americans' ambassadorial staff moving out of town at all -- many say the Americans' historical presence inside the inner-city will be sorely missed, and it will put them well away from any interaction with the Dutch population,. Architect Jurjen Van Duyn was particularly opposed, saying that this t "put our American friends outside the geographic heart of our old democracy."

"The Americans are chosing to move themselves from our public spaces to the outer edges of The Hague,' said Van Duyn in his doctorate thesis he did about the subject of the US Embassy moving to the outer city limits in 2004. He warned that the present political tensions between the United States and the rest of the world are reflected in their far-reaching plans to replace most of their major embassies to the perimeters of cities.

He said that the very location of the US Embassies and Consulates remained very crucial to the US government officials' daily interaction with the citizens of such friendly nations.

This pack of WWII Lucky Strikes, cast aside by a US soldier in 1945 after liberation of the long-suffering city of Amsterdam from the Nazis, is treasured in the municipal archives as a reminder of the Netherlands' long relationship with American citizens. Moving the US Embassy to the outskirts of The Hague saddens many Dutch citizens. Vote it up!

"Shifting frameworks in international politics and new public involvement have great consequences. Extraordinary embassy security measures taken after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon now are becoming permanent. And these plans have a great impact on historical cities such as The Hague. They also push against the capacity of the local police forces. Constant reminders of a terrorist attack.

"The embassy plans cause resentment too - as they now are planting a building right inside our preciously little public space, our city's few places left where we can still move about in nature. All these measures constantly remind us (Dutch citizens) of the possible treat of a terrorist attack."

The town council of The Hague initiated this move themselves after the present US Embassy in downtown The Hague suddenly undertook such massive security measures. The city fathers and mothers proposed that the embassy be moved to a piece of pasture-land in the outer suburb of Cling

Clingendael, inside the sand-dunes which protect the lower-lying land from the North Sea. "However, why would the embassy of one of the world's most important democracies have to be displaced to the suburbs anyway? " asked Van Duyn.

His protest-doctorate in 2004 however made little impact: the new embassy plans have been approved, and the land has been made available. They plan to move by 2010. The embassy personnel are very vulnerable to terrorist attacks at their present location: for instance, a tram roars right past the building every few minutes, and just metres away from their windows.

"We should let the Americans move where-ever they want to to feel safe,' says one Clingendael resident, who welcomed having the embassy in his upper-class suburb. "We musn't forget what the Americans have done for our nation over the years. They liberated us from the Nazis, they set up the Marshall Plan to kick-start our economy, and much, much more,'

The plans for the new US Embassy site, smack-dab in the middle of the old horse-racing course Duindigt, (Dunes' End) has meanwhile, also plunged the Dutch racing community in a crisis. They are losing their precious race track in the sand-dunes and the cash-registers have stopped ringing: with the current economic downturn, the crowds are staying away enmasse.

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '